Movie review - Bloody Axe Wound

Bloody Axe Wound ** (out of 5) This darkly comedic gorefest may be sporting my favorite title in recent memory. The product, alas, does not reach those heights for the genre. Still, this plays out with enough splatter to feed the beasts within us.

Our star and narrator is Abbie (believe it or not) Bladecut (Sari Arambulo) – a young woman trying to rise in her dad’s failing business. Roger Bladecut (an unrecognizable Billy Burke, behind his character’s scarred, discolored face) runs a shabby little video store that primarily exists on the sale and rental of the vividly gruesome snuff films he makes in their otherwise quiet small town of Clover Falls. All the Bladecut flicks focus on vividly slaying local teenagers, significantly depleting the high school’s population. Roger does the choosing and killing. But Abbie yearns to take up the reins, since daddy’s getting too old and unwell to count on for the long haul.

Writer/director Matthew John Lawrence’s plot both follows and spoofs the genre, as Abbie awkwardly strives to follow in daddy’s maniacal bootsteps, but starts feeling conflicted about her career choice. Once she starts getting to know the intended victims by posing as a new student, her devotion to the task begins to waver. Kids are always told not to play with their food. Similarly, wannabe slashers shouldn’t play with their prey, although for different reasons.

The essential killings are done with some clever, often humorous, touches, and plenty of fake blood and viscera. But one must suspend an inordinate amount of disbelief, which I found distracting. Unlike the Scream franchise, they never show who is filming the murders or how they’re toting cameras into all the places where the slayings occur without the victims noticing. There’s no accounting for how so many kids from one school could be getting offed without any police or media attention. Or how could they be renting a huge series of videos in the same town as their victims without anyone making a connection? Even though realism isn’t a defining trait of slasher flicks this one stretches its premise a bit too far.

On the plus side, Arambulo and her new bestie Sam (Molly Brown) deliver very appealing performances. Arambulo evokes empathy despite her vicious aspirations, and shows Abbie’s emotional roller coaster with ease. The future looks bright for both actresses. Just don’t let yourself think too much about the logic behind what you’re watching.

(Bloody Axe Wound streams exclusively on Shudder as of 3/21/25)